By: Kyle Schmit
When I first realized I would have to be up and ready, at the field house, by 7:20AM, I was not enthused. However, when I began to interact with the students from On Track, I started to really value the experience. When we first walked up the school, we got to learn a little about what the school is and who it serves. This really broadened my perspectives as far as the responsibilities that many students face on a daily basis. For example, some students are primary providers for there family, or they are responsible for getting their younger siblings to school on time; and for these reasons the traditional high school settings don't work for them.
As we began our first station, scribble bots, I could immediately see how well there approach of student problem solving worked. Our student immediately took charge and explained the activity to the whole room. It was a lot of fun to see how much the students were learning and how much they (and I) enjoyed it. We then moved on to the Makey Makey station. This was easily my favorite station. We got to play dance dance revolution with bananas and it was a lot of fun to play with the technology. Then we went to the Franken-animal room, and it was really cool. We cut a hole in the head of one stuffed animals and put a wolf in it so its head was sticking out. It was a really interesting lesson in design and creativity.
As we finished up our time with a little Q&A, I realized there is a lot of opportunity for me to give back at On Track. One of the teachers even mentioned that if anyone is good with spreadsheets, they would really appreciate it. Excel is one of my secret obsessions and I definitely want to look into how I can contribute to On Track Academy. It was a really valuable experience that I wouldn't trade for any amount of sleep.
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